I am certainly no fan of the DNC as a working alternative to the RNC. They are both morally bankrupt and tend to move middle. The far right is losing its grip--if it ever had anything other than a spectacular, phantastic hold--and Bush is really aiming for the middle through compromise. His admin pushes the far-right ideology and then compromises in the same way that the DNC pushes a liberal agenda only to compromise. And middle-American is a dank place to be: sexist, racist, classist, theocratic, pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstrap suckers. Just drive down the I-70 corridor, through Missouri and Kansas, or scan the radio dial while driving through Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky. Country songs with jingoist slogans, Godtalk radio, and Ted Nugent. Real crap. Family Values.

They are all liberals--in the sense that they all wish to work within the current system to change things for their construction of "the better place." Even the far right, by definition are liberals rather than conservatives. And conservatives are grotesque idealists. I am talking politics not economics.

On my most pessimistic days, I don't understand how anyone with a soul could claim to be conservative. As if change isn't called for. Spectacle worship at its worst. The machine works on its own. We can ignore it. We cannot break it. Actually, the status quo is only valuable in that it is always there to resist. And this is where my optimism comes in--to teach is to resist...but that is another story.

Some yahoo (Brad DeLong, you can look up his blog on your own) posted a claim that republican senator Wayne Allard is a Leninist. Moronic. Are we still calling folks who hurt a so-called "American Way" communists? I am a Coloradan; we know what a bigot freak Wayne Allard is, but he is no Leftist. He is a fascist, maybe. He wants to militarize and corporatize. He is right out of the Mussolini handbook for political power. Nevertheless, he is the kind of politician the Republican party uses to bring up a far right idea. The RNC always wishes to achieve something more or less 45 degrees to the left of its extremists. I wish we had a few powerful leftists in national American politics. But none exist beyond the local level.

The statistics might show that the poorest states tend to be red states. (Now a handful of "purple" states, too, maybe a shift??? And Vermont is one notable, blue exception.) No matter who receives the most tax revenue, the poorest red states are always the most hard hit by Republican cuts, which supposedly allow us to "downsizing government." The real issue is that both parties are stand-ins for corporate interests. Smart corporations send money to both parties. They may send more to the RNC than to the DNC or to the DNC than to the RNC, but that shouldn't matter. Any party willing to govern with an ear to the corporate will does not have citizens interests in mind. And, in a grotesque manner (in reverse,) is regulating business, which is a bad thing for even capitalism.

See my last post on the proposal to virtaully scrap HUD. The program that Bush wants to eliminate? Rural Housing and Economic Development. The republicans more than the democrats are the party for the metropolis. See Bloomberg.

As a fan of the road trip, I suggest we take another trip through rural America (or your first one)--real rural America--to see what happens to towns that have historically witnessed the federal government turning its back on those that support it the most. Just a suggestion--plenty to see in South Carolina and Georgia, Oklahoma and Idaho. What I found on my trips in the early nineties--besides rabid, right-wing propaganda, God, and poverty--was an American landscape that most Americans only pretend to understand. The United States cops to a knowledge of "America." You all know this already...I am probably preaching to the choir.